Drought monitor

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The USDA drought monitor site is important for gardeners. I scooted my browser over there when I saw migrating spring birds back in the Carolinas early, on Jan 6th. Did they know something we did not?

And there you have it. If this keeps up, winter wheat in the midwest will not do well; we grow white winter wheat in SC and it may not be a banner crop here, either. The Mississppi River may well again run low, interfering with deep draft barge traffic. Southern states east of the Appalachian Mountains are in drought - especially Georgia. Most of Texas is hurting.

Drought resiant seeds and breeds, mulching, drip irrigation, and wicking beds are looking like better and better options for gardeners. And rain barrels are sounding pretty good. It was 80 degrees at the Columbia SC airport today. In January. This does not bode well for the summer heat.

We never got drier than the 'abnormally dry' status last summer, but much of our garden and many of our young fruit and nut trees would probably not have survived without a great deal of work on our part schlepping water from the pond. We are already deep mulching and looking at alternative watering methods as parts of our preps.

If anyone knows of a good pump we can use to transport water from the pond approximately 100' upland, I'd like to hear about it.

Our local newspaper reports both historical (~125 years) and year-to date rainfall values. Currently we are at 125% of historical rainfall levels (July 1 to June 30). According to the map Wendy posted, we are in a moderate drought condition. Is the USDA defining drought as a multi-year rolling average or a year-to-date figure?

On the island touted by the tourism boards as having the wettest spot on Earth, we had an extremely dry '12. Funny, when the grass don't grow people don't buy or repair lawnmowers or weedwackers. We had our slowest business month in over 6 years this last November, by a factor of .5. Unfortunately, water pump sales didn't make up for it. I was starting to get worried 'til the rain came down in December. Of course, to our good fortune, we were still able to get those Peruvian pears at Costco for only $6 per bag! Whew! Aloha, Steve.

Since its gonna be hot, I'm gonna get a plastic kiddy pool and sit in it to stay cool...."Mr. Turtle Pool" looks best and its got a slide......

Humor aside, what can you? I guess the first thing I'll do is water as much stuff as I can at night more rather than early a.m. - plus, that way I can top off my pool and it'll be warmer but still cool later. Okay, I'll also use mulch and get my rain barrels set up....but I'm keeping the pool!